“Ok, let’s get you set up,” he said as he led the way to a row of cubicles.

Bossman walked into the first cubicle and told the secretary sitting there that “the summer intern” would be taking this space for the summer. She was being moved to the table in the client waiting room area. The secretary looked up from her solitaire screen and just glared at me.

Great. The secretary hated me already. Good start.

After a small argument, the secretary reluctantly got up and did as she was told. I took a seat in my windowless, depressing, florescent cubicle. Right then and there, I felt a little something die inside of me. I immediately looked around for possible places to hang the noose. Gotta always identify your emergency exits.

After tuning out Bossman’s little speech, he handed me what seemed like a 200-page condominium prospectus. He told me to read and be familiar with the property by the end of week. Easy enough. I thought.

9:30 AM

Reading . . . .

10:30 AM

Still Reading . . . .

11:30 AM

Pretending to read . . . .

12:28 PM

Lunch! The highlight of any workday.

1:37 PM

Back from lunch, sweating. Does this dump even have air conditioning?

1:45 PM

I finally dry off and decide to check out what I’m working with in this cubicle. Since the cube belonged to the secretary, there were all kinds of office-related technology. I had a prepaid postage stamper behind me, a scanner to the left, some kind of electronic signature pad, and, of course, sitting there looking all innocent, that f*ck^ng label maker.

I just couldn’t help myself. I never had personal access to a label maker before. The office was empty. Everyone was still at lunch. I could already talk intelligently about the condominium property, and I still had the entire week to finish that up anyway.

With an evil smirk, I turned on the label maker and started to think of all the stupid shit I could print out and secretly stick to my roommate’s clothing.

I looked at the thing. The light was on. I looked for the plug. It was plugged into the outlet. What the hell! Why didn’t it work? I decided to change the message and try again.

“There is a 63% chance Blake will give you herpes just by shaking his hand.”

“Make Label.” Again, nothing.

I hit the top of the label maker, my usual strategy for nonfunctioning technology. I hit “Make Label” again. Nothing.

So I gave up. I mean, making labels is supposed to be fun, and this was not worth the frustration. I turned the label maker off, feeling defeated. Back to reading the condo prospectus.

3:30 PM

Bossman comes back from lunch and makes a beeline for my cubicle.

“I need to print out an address label,” he brusquely stated.

“Oh, okay,” I stammer, turning the label maker on and opening up the label-making program.

He looks at the screen where you write what you want on the label and sees . . . the office address. (What, did you really think I was stupid enough not to erase my failed labels?) He presses “Make Label.” Nothing happens. He looks at me, and I just shrug my shoulders.

Bossman walked away. Five minutes later, he came back with a cable. He took the cable and connected the label maker to the computer.

The label maker was not even connected to the computer? There were like 90 different cables back there! But still, how could I have not noticed? Either way, at least I was going to be able to make my labels after he left. I was happy.

Bossman turned everything back on and pressed “Make Label” again. This time, it worked.

The thing started buzzing, and out came the first label. But it didn’t stop. It kept on sliding. Out came a second label, then a third label. A fourth, fifth and, finally, sixth label printed out. I started to sweat. Why did it print six labels and not just one?

Bossman ripped off the labels and slowly read the first one out loud.

“Joey is just a little mentally retarded. Treat accordingly.”

I shrunk into my seat. Beads of sweat fell from my chin into my lap.

The second one read the same. He read the third and fourth ones out loud as well. Slowly, deliberately and painfully pronouncing each word, Bossman enunciated, “There is a 63% chance Blake will give you herpes just by shaking his hand.”

At this point, I couldn’t slouch any further. Where were my “emergency exits” again?!?!

Bossman, staring daggers right at me, remarked, “Looks like someone in the office has an interesting sense of humor. My nephew is mentally challenged,” he emphasized, “and I don’t find things like that funny.”

Bossman’s face was beet red at that point. He knows it was me. I know, he knows it was me.

But I still say, “Yeah, that is odd. Who are Joey and Blake?”

Admit nothing!

And there, on the first day of my summer internship, I was labeled “Fired.”

DAY F*CK!NG ONE. What kind of label maker saves labels that were erased!?! That damn label maker. But that secretary was sure happy to get her cube back.

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This intern is a bit of a tool. He should have focused on pleasing the secretary. If he had done that, he would not have started to play with her apparatus, which was unplugged. I think this tool should therefore focus next time on the women, so he would not get into trouble like this again.

Stefan

Labelmakers work like printers. When you make a label it goes in the queue, even if it can’t contact the printer right now. So guess what happens when it finally gets a hold of the printer?

slappywag

Ha. Ha.
Seriously though…..haha!

BL1Y

When the cat’s AWAY the mice will play.

Er, no.

Hilarious. And you didn’t even get to bang the secretary.

Marlinjd

dude funny

prog

It’s a printer. The jobs stay queued until they are manually canceled or printed.

Magic Circle Jerk

Great story, but you deserved it fucking around like that on your first day.

BL1Y

So if the boss didn’t have a retarded nephew, he would have just thought the intern had a strange since of humor, but it wasn’t offensive? That’s retarded.

Alma Federer

I must be getting old. I think I agree with BL1Y and Guano. What is wrong with me?

Be careful BL!Y how you throw that word “retarded” you may end up in court.

BL1Y

How would I end up in court for using the word retarded? Last I checked, we had freedom of speech here, and that includes the freedom to call retards retarded. Now, it might get me thrown OUT of court, but that’s a different issue.

Robert Smith

You are retarded. People from the shallow end of the gene pool -like you-are descendants of the morons that used to screw around in ancient Sumeria when the irrigation ditches had to be dug. You were the goof offs that never dug a deep enough fox hole in WWII. You are the feckless type that runs a photo-enforced red light on the way to an armoured car robbery and gets everyone arrested. In offices, you annoy people like me who eat lunch at my desk so I can go home early to a family or out on a date with a great looking (and now imoverished and separated) hedge fund wife. Absent a large family trust, work is where your money comes from. Its to be safeguarded at all costs. Submorons like you are usually bounced back to burger flipping by tests like this. Good riddance.

You are an idiot and you fully deserved what you got. Seriously, how old are you? Three? You have got to be one of the stupidest individuals I have ever heard of, and that’s saying something. I’m surprised you even told this story; shame would have caused me to bury it and strike it from memory. I seriously hope you don’t pass the bar exam, or take any cases. Your boss should have called your law school to warn them of your behavior and idiocy.